


Eridan Ampora And The Vampiric Scourge

by admiralindia



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternia, Illustrated, M/M, genetically engineered vampires, trolls are trolls, will end well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admiralindia/pseuds/admiralindia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The laboratory is a powerful engine of evolutionary blasphemy. It produces unspeakable wonders."</p>
<p>Eridan believes that hunting scourge-infected lowbloods is an excellent way to spend his time. It's a public service.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eridan Ampora And The Vampiric Scourge

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for an anonymous writing prompt I received through my Tumblr, which is [here](http://admiralindia.tumblr.com/).

The Condesce went to a lot of trouble to keep her highbloods mentally stimulated. They were like well-bred barkbeasts in the prime of their lives—trainable, eager, but high-strung and dangerously prone to boredom. Like barkbeasts, they required careful tending lest they go out of their heads and tear the figurative house apart. What they needed were  _tasks_. Multitudes on multitudes of large-scale and time-consuming tasks. As a canny (and morally apathetic) ruler, the Condesce had long since perfected the art of manufacturing minor catastrophes to keep her highbloods safely occupied. 

Like the thing with the scourge. For the scourge project, she would give herself at least an eleven out of ten points for creativity and outrageous excess. It was some of her best work—genetic engineering at its finest. She had pulled together a group of elite researchers and tasked them with deliberately contaminating the gene pool with “some kinda somefin” that only affected lowbloods. “Preferably somefin that endangers the public at large,” she’d said, gesturing expansively. “I want to see some controlled panic, you sea? Give me somefin reel nasty.”

And the thing they gave her looked a little like vampirism.

The geneticists began with samples taken from green-blooded rainbow drinkers, then hacked away at the genetic coding until they came up with the grossest, ugliest, and most out of control version of vampirism they could possibly produce. It was an evolutionary catastrophe—something that could never develop on its own, much less survive beyond the first poor mutant bastard who contracted it. But the laboratory is a powerful engine of evolutionary blasphemy. It produces unspeakable wonders.

They targeted the lowblood population, lacing the mother grub's genetic slurry with the retroviruses that carried the modified DNA sequence. For years, it could lie dormant in a troll’s system, invisible until it activated, impossible to screen for and impossible to predict. Less than one percent of lowbloods harbored the virus, but uncertainty stirred a visceral fear in everyone, including the highbloods. Trolls were accustomed to many flavors of turmoil on their everyday lives, but lines and thresholds still existed. Frenzied lowbloods juggernauting from alleyways and leaping wildly at passing arteries did not qualify as a reasonable expectation of violence. People started walking around even more armed than usual. Lowbloods went cold with fear over every minor cough—the first symptom of transformation. Every seasonal bug, every allergy was cause for concern. They learned to sigh with relief when their cough turned into miserable vomiting or a never-ending font of nasal discharge. As long as there was no blood they could be horrifically ill in peace.

Advisors to the Condesce wanted to call it “vampirism.” They tried valiantly to make the word stick, loving it for its rich and mostly negative cultural history. (All names for lowblood medical conditions had to be negative as a rule. The meticulously constructed system of lowblood-related injustice would fall apart otherwise). They ran three aggressive “anti-vampire” campaigns and printed thousands of propaganda posters with the word "vampire" displayed prominently before the green-blooded rainbow drinkers reminded everyone that  _their_  affliction was already called vampirism. They didn’t want to be killed accidentally by morons who couldn’t differentiate between two separate vampirisms. Round after round of court cases followed, wasting ridiculous amounts of time and pissing everybody off. Even those who were not directly involved. The Condesce was thrilled.

 

Ultimately, the term for lowblood vampirism was demoted to “scourge.” They were scourge and their condition was the scourge, though they could also be said to _have_ scourge. The whole thing was very loose and nonspecific. On the advent of the word, most highbloods decided that they might have fought too hard for rights to vampirism when a word as fantastic and ruthless as "scourge" had been available to them all along.

**Author's Note:**

> No clue where this is going, guys. I'm rolling with it so hard.
> 
> I love constructive criticism. I'm looking to improve as a writer and I'm probably borderline masochistic about it, so hit me with whatever you have. I'm also working on my art, so I post a lot of it [here](http://admiralindia.tumblr.com/) if you're interested. I take writing prompts over there too. Or here. Whatever, wherever. =D


End file.
